


Writing Essays

by Jeanny Turner (Ginada)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Canon Compliant, Cruciatus, Death Eaters, Friendship, Gen, Hogwarts Sixth Year, Homework
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 08:44:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18688066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginada/pseuds/Jeanny%20Turner
Summary: The story takes place at some day during the sixth year in 1996/1997. Because of his mission for Voldemort, Draco has alienated himself from his friends and classmates. He's sitting in the common room, trying to finish an essay for Professor McGonagall, when he receives unexpected help - for not unexpected, but dreaded reasons.





	Writing Essays

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Aufsätze schreiben](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18248915) by [Jeanny Turner (Ginada)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ginada/pseuds/Jeanny%20Turner). 



> This is a translation of my fanfiction "Aufsätze schreiben", which also happens to be the first fanfiction I published. I did not originally plan on translating it, but there are just so few German reading people here on AO3 so I couldn't resist. I must warn you that English is not my native language and I don't know any English speaker who could beta read it, so there are probably mistakes and a lot of quirky sentences - my English used to be alright but quite a lot of time living in countries with English as an official, but not predominantly native language has kind of ruined it, I'm afraid. So please feel free to point out any mistakes, what feels unnatural for you and of course the story in general. Also, please let me know if you think the rating should be different or I missed important tags, the story does contain one swearword - and I know English speakers are more sensitive about those - and is certainly no children's story, but the violence is only implied.

**In the Slytherin common room, school year 1996/1997**

Groaning softly, Draco drew a line through the sentence he had just been writing. His transfiguration essay was still lacking two feet, more, actually, considered how much he had crossed out. The whole parchment looked untidy, he would have minded if he had got enough energy left to care. He propped his head in his hands and rubbed his eyes. Strained, he tried to concentrate, he absolutely _had_ to finish the essay, it was due tomorrow and Professor McGonagall would keep him in detention again if he would not hand it in in time, and he definitely had no time at all for that. But instead of focusing on such irrelevant negligibilities as transfiguration essays, his brain preferred playing snatches of failed attempts to repair the Vanishing Cabinet, and soon enough he was thinking about why it didn’t work and what else he could try. His eyes were burning, he was in that state of exhaustion that makes your eyes tear up.

He pulled himself together and wrote another sentence. After finishing the transfiguration essay he would have to start the one for Defence Against the Dark Arts, which was also due tomorrow. He decided not to write that one. Professor Snape favoured him and knew about his mission, he would not keep him in detention. He would still be disappointed, and even though Draco knew Snape to favour him, he didn’t think that the preference would go as far as giving him a good mark at the end in spite of everything. He had always been a fairly good student, but during this year his marks had dramatically dropped, even though he had, due to his time consuming mission, already taken only five N.E.W.T courses instead of six, like he had always aspired. ‘I don’t care’ he tried to convince himself. ‘Marks don’t matter anymore, the Dark Lord will be victorious and be grateful to me and give good positions to me and father and mother.’ But he didn’t actually believe in it himself anymore, it was simple mortal fear that kept him from stopping.

The concentration he had struggled so hard to gain broke again after a short while when Theodore entered the common room, sat down next to some sixth-year girls at a table and started writing something. He didn’t look good, way to pale, Draco thought, unable to force his thoughts on the essay. Suddenly he would have liked to apologise to Theodore, but that was impossible, it could cost his life if it became known to the wrong people. Shortly after the beginning of the first term they had quarreled badly, and even though they had never been close friends – Theodore didn’t like Vincent and Gregory – Draco missed their conversations. Theodore had told him very clearly that he thought it a mistake to join the Death Eaters, he thought it to be beneath a pureblood to allow someone else so much power about oneself. In general, Draco had known Theodore was thinking that way, because of that he had not planned on showing him his mark, but of course Theodore had known it from his father and confronted Draco. It hat surprised him, Draco had not expected Theodore’s aversion to be strong enough to do this. They had not shouted at each other, it wasn’t their style and the subject was way too secret to shout about, but alone in their dormitory they had said words in each other’s faces, so harsh, that Draco feared they could not reconcile. He had accused Theodore of not fighting for the right case, the case he believed in, too, after all, out of cowardice and Theodore had called him a mummy’s darling and a coward who would do everything his father or the Dark Lord commanded without thinking and that it would be his ruin. At least with the last part Theodore had been right, Draco thought now in moments of desperate clarity.

Pansy’s piercing eyes met his. With a slight shock he realised he must have been staring at the other sixth-years and he hurriedly lowered his gaze on the parchment with the accursed essay. He missed his friends terribly. The only people he still allowed around him were Vincent and Gregory, they accepted when he forbade them asking questions and were too stupid to figure much out. The others did know that he was bearing the Dark Mark, but they couldn’t know anything specific about his mission, it was way too dangerous. They could reveal him when they would talk too much, or be endangered themselves, so Draco had pushed them all away, had been insufferable on purpose. It had not been difficult for him, he couldn’t stand their questions, their concern for him anymore, or the ease in which they still went through life, with no greater worries than the N.E.W.T.s. Daphne had been immediately offended and left him alone, so her best friend Tracey had distanced herself as well. Draco sometimes caught Tracey glancing at him and wondered if there was something akin to concern in her eyes, but maybe it was just fear of him, her mother was muggleborn, after all. Blaise had accepted Draco’s behaviour with a shrug and didn’t comment on it, he had a lot of experience in staying out of conflicts. Millicent had tried for longer to keep up their friendship. Once she had hissed at him to at least not separate her from Vincent and Gregory as well, if he insisted on becoming a solitary person, but at the end she had given up trying to have conversations with him. Pansy was the only one who still tried to talk to him. It scared him how easily he was able to shout and bark even at his best friend in his constantly tired state. Pansy was the one of his school mates he wanted to protect the most, which was why he wanted her to leave him alone, but at the same time he was incredibly glad she had not yet stopped trying to speak with him, his heart would break when she would give him up. He knew she was angry because he was not talking to her, was not confiding in her, even though she didn’t hide her sympathies for the Death Eaters, and that she was incredibly worried because he wasn’t sleeping or eating enough. At the most impossible places and the most impossible times she was handing him his favourite sandwiches with corned beef and radish, which he sometimes wolfed down thankfully because he truly had had no time to eat, and more often left untouched because he had absolutely no appetite at all. He knew Pansy was getting the sandwiches with Millicent’s help directly from the kitchen, the effort and the fact that Millicent was still doing this even though she had stopped talking to him did touch him a little, but mostly he just wished they would leave him alone. Pansy's worried glances were the problem when he did his homework in the common room, but they were still preferable to Potter’s suspicious gazes that seemed to follow him everywhere else in the castle.

 

Draco put a full stop behind the last sentence of his conclusion. The essay was still at least half of a foot short, but he didn’t care now, it would count as homework handed in and spare him from detention, even though he knew what he had written was lacking any depth. He started packing his stuff. He was so tired he could barely keep his eyes open and hoped he would be able to sleep a little while the dormitory was empty – when the others were asleep, he wanted to sneak out again and continue working on the Vanishing Cabinet. Even though he was overtired the whole time, he had trouble falling asleep, his fantasy showed him pictures of dead old men, of his parents’ gruesomely mutilated corpses. The lump of fear in his stomach didn’t dissolve for any time at all anymore, he wished for nothing more than hiding from the whole world in his mother’s arms, but as it was, he couldn’t give up because he had to protect her.

Apparently Theodore had finished what he was writing as well, Draco heard him saying good night to Daphne and Pansy and the noise his chair made scraping over the floor. Theodore crossed the room, and when he passed Draco’s table he dropped a piece of parchment on it without further comment. Surprised, Draco followed him with his eyes and then took the parchment. It was an essay on the topic they were supposed to write about in Defence Against the Dark Arts, he realised with astonishment. A little note was pinned on it, with a spell he didn’t know and a sketch of a wand movement scribbled on it. Draco skimmed the essay, it was good, definitely better than anything he would be able to produce at the moment. Hesitantly he practised the movement, he wondered what Theodore wanted, he did think him capable of writing an essay just in order to get him to blow off some fingers with one of his experimental spells. He had never wanted him as an enemy – on the other hand, Theodore wasn’t really his enemy, they just had different opinions and were disappointed with each other. Draco murmured the spell, and suddenly the essay was written in his own handwriting. Astonished he looked at it, then he hurriedly gathered his things and followed Theodore into their dormitory.

He sat fully clothed on his bed, staring blankly at nothing. When Draco entered, he flinched slightly.

“Snape won’t check your essays for enchantments. McGonagall probably will, Flitwick and Sinistra maybe, too. Slughorn probably not”, he said. It was the first sentence he said to Draco in several weeks.

“You went home this weekend”, said Draco and swallowed. He lowered himself onto his bed, which was opposite Theodore’s. Now, from close distance, it was obvious even in the moving light of the torches lighting the dormitory that Theodore looked ill. He was pale, a blood vessel was broken in his left eye and the red of the blood contrasted shockingly with his dark blue iris.

Theodore was silent for a long time, looking at his hands instead of Draco. “Maybe you’re right”, he whispered finally. “Maybe it is really better to join them.” He laughed dryly, without humour. “What’s freedom of will against some freedom of pain?”

Draco felt like there was a block of ice growing inside him. “Show me your hands”, he demanded with a dry mouth. When Theodore didn’t react he crossed the few steps towards him and pulled up his hands. “Keep them still”, he ordered and let them go. Theodore couldn’t keep them still, they were shaking violently. Draco closed his eyes for a moment when he saw confirmed what he had dreaded. After-effects of the Cruciatus Curse. He went to his cupboard and rummaged until he got a little phial made from black glass. He pushed it into Theodore’s hands, which he had dug in his robe on his lap to hide the shaking. “It helps against the after-effects and makes long term damage less likely. You’ll probably need all there’s left.”

Theodore turned the phial in his hands. “You need it yourself”, he said hesitantly.

Draco shrugged, forcedly nonchalant. “I can always ask Snape for more.”

Theodore nodded and trickled the content on his tongue. After he had swallowed he let out a relieved breath. Draco knew from experience that the potions helped as good as immediately against the echo of the pain that the Cruciatus Curse left.

“My father absolutely wants me to become a Death Eater”, Theodore said after a while in which they had been sitting in silence next to each other on his bed. “You probably already guessed. He somehow ordered I must be convinced. He’s envies your father because his son is the youngest Death Eater.”

Draco snorted. “Our fathers are in Azkaban, you would think they had other worries.”

“Not for much longer.”

“And I decided all on my own to join them.”

“You did not, and you know it.”

Draco shrugged. They were dangerously close the core of their quarrel.

Theodore put a placating hand on his forearm. “I’ve learned some very convincing arguments in the meantime. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to say no, and if it wouldn’t be smarter to just give in. As I said, maybe you’ve been the smarter one from the beginning in this case.”

Draco heard the trembling in his voice and knew he was desperately trying to sound unaffected, even though his world was tumbling down, nothing mattered more to Theodore than his independence.

“Oh Theo”, he murmured. “What was it with the essay?”

Theodore glanced at him. “You’ve got some kind of a task, and it isn’t going well and it’s overtaxing you. I don’t even want to know what it’s about, I assume you mustn’t tell anyways. But at least I can help you with the schoolwork.”

Draco smiled slightly, part of him had known Theodore wanted to settle their argument the moment the spell had changed the handwriting, but he had also been afraid it couldn’t possibly be something good that made him change his mind.

“And you’re terribly unsubtle, if you carry on like that the last idiot will notice there’s something wrong with you. They’re gonna ask questions, Draco.”

Draco made a grimace, he knew Theodore was right, but he just wasn’t able to take care of everything and pretend he was fine at the same time. “The teachers don’t give a shit what happens to a Death Eater’s son anyways”, he said defiantly.

“Snape does.”

“He knows about it”, Draco admitted.

Theodore sighed. “Let me guess. He wants to help you, but you won’t allow it.”

“I _need_ the success, I can’t allow him to meddle and take it from me”, Draco said, he noticed himself it sounded defiant and desperate.

“But you can allow me to write a couple of essays for you, can’t you?”

Draco nodded lightly.

“Okay. And in return, get some more of this stuff.” Theodore raised the hand with the black phial. “I’ll probably need more.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

They fell silent, soon Vincent, Gregory and Blaise would come to the dormitory.

“Really, it was _you_ who was right”, Draco finally whispered, just barely audible. “It’s insane and I wish I wasn’t part of it”


End file.
